Three Bullets

What if the assassination of President John F. Kennedy never happened - but there was a conspiracy? What might have occurred in Dallas on November 22, 1963 is the premise of R.J. Ellory's latest novel "Three Bullets". Instead of the death of a popular young president, we are presented with the dark side of "Camelot , the court of JFK with his brother Bobby and the "Irish Mafia" fighting a desperate battle to ensure Kennedy wins the Democratic nomination and gains a second term as President of the United States.

We meet Mitch Newman, a washed-up photojournalist based in Washington, D.C. One night he receives a phone call from Alice Boyd, mother of Mitch's former fiancee Jean. Mitch and Jean broke off their engagement when he left to go to Korea as a war photographer. After a breakdown which brought him home just a few months later, Mitch tried desperately to reconcile with Jean, to no avail. Now, her mother tells him that Jean has taken her own life.

From then on, things start to get weird. All of Jean's papers in her apartment are taken away by a policeman and men claiming to be work colleagues of Jean - except they weren't who they said they were. Mitch reads material written by Jean at her mother's home. Those documents also disappear. With only a few sketchy clues to work on, Mitch - fired by his undying love for Jean - starts to investigate, beginning with a trip to Dallas. It seems she was working on an expose of the Kennedy family's rigging of the election which elected JFK. Mitch becomes convinced that her death was not suicide.
Writing about Kennedy v Nixon election, which Kennedy won by the narrowest of margins, Jean makes a damning observation: "The only good thing about whichever candidate wins this election is that it the other one didn't."

So begins a journey into the dark heart of the U.S.A's political landscape in the 1960's - an alternative history of the Kennedy presidency after November 1963. There are details of Kennedy's countless sexual liasons with women and his reliance on various pills and potions - all of which were barely mentioned by the US media until long after his death. We learn of the desperate measures taken by Kennedy's men to ensure his nomination and re-election - events which actually happened prior to JFK's visit to Texas.(It's a fact that Kennedy told advisers he expected a tough re-election campaign because of his support of civil rights. Indeed, his historic Civil Rights Act, introduced in June 1963, was stalled in Congress when he died.)
There is also a wealth of detail on the Secret Service's role in protecting the President and his family and how they deal with the hundreds of death threats which were directed at JFK.
As well as Kennedy himself, his brother Bobby and the politicians and fixers in Kennedy's cabinet, real characters such as Jack Ruby appear in the story while others, such as Mafia bosses and union boss Jimmy Hoffa, are also mentioned. Some of the women who were among Kennedy's sexual conquests play a major part. And, of course, there's Lee Harvey Oswald.

The plot takes the reader down several blind alleys and Mitch seems in the grip of an obsession as he tries to piece together various clues surrounding events in Dallas in November 1963 - until the action moves to Atlantic City and Kennedy's date with an alternative destiny.
Finally, there's a fabulous twist to this tale which shocks Mitch to his core. This is a fascinating thriller and will surely give JFK assassination conspiracy theorists some incredible new material.

My thanks to the Orion Publishing Group and to NetGalley for a copy of this book in return for an unbiased review.

I was drawn to this book because it's alternate history, but it's much more than that. Three Bullets is set in a world of early 1960's USA where the plot to assassinate President Kennedy in Dallas failed. The, now infamous, date of 11th November 1963 and the man Lee Harvey Oswald hold no significance. We follow Mitchell as he investigates his ex-girlfriend's apparent suicide; Jean was a journalist who seems to be investigating something to do with JFK himself. This book is crime fiction, political thriller, with touch of a love story.
I was worried that the story revolved around US politics and that it would be a bit dry and preachy. Luckily, it is neither. The author doesn't even allude to the current political climate in the US, which I was happily surprised at! I was also concerned that i would struggle to understand what was going on if the story revolved around the American political system, but the story is woven around the politics and it works really well as a novel. There is a theme of "What if?" in the novel; the obvious one being "What if JFK had lived through that fateful day in Dallas?". But we're also presented with other questions: "What if Jackie had married Bobby Kennedy instead?" or "What if Mitch hadn't gone to Korea?".
Mitch and Jean's relationship is explored in an effective way. We look back as their doomed romance unfolds, and Ellory explores the motivation, emotions, and heartbreak, that are within a relationship. It's a good way to keep the story grounded and on a human scale...an alternate history of such a major event could have been too big to handle, but the exploration into Jean and Mitch's history means it maintains the humanity. The love letters were a nice touch and the reveal towards the end was very clever and meant our perceptions of them changed.
This novel has a very smart mix of real people and events, and fictional characters and fictional events. There are a few threads that I'm sure are based on theories and suspicions about JFK, but they written about in a clear and concise way that adds to the story, instead of the sounding like the ramblings of a conspiracy fanatic. I loved the reveal near the end where we learn what this has really been about. Overall, the ending was both good storytelling and realistic.

Mitch and Jean were an item; engaged and heading for a life together until early in the 1950's Mitch, a photo journalist made the decision to head off to Korea. It was a mistake, one that cost him his relationship with Jean and when he returned 4 months later, his attempts to rekindle their romance were met with rejection, letters remained unanswered and he had to accept she was no longer part of his life. Nobody was more surprised than him when on Independence day 1964, over a decade later he received a phone call from her mother telling him that Jean had taken her own life. But things don't quite add up, her mother claims its a lie, why are the police on the door of her apartment, who are the people who falsely claimed to be colleagues of hers and removed all her papers, why had investigative journalist Jean been in Dallas and what did current President John F Kennedy have to do with it?

Retelling history as it may have come to pass if those fatal shots fired on 22 Nov 1963 hadn't happened, this book is part fiction, part fact. Set in a period of history that still raises a lot of questions that theme is cleverly followed through in this latest book by RJ Ellory.

Three Bullets is not just a fictional account of a journalists obsession with uncovering the truth about what happened to the woman he loved, its also a well researched and well written journey into the dark side of the powerful Kennedy Administration.

As his suspicion that something is very definitely not right about Jeans death grows Mitch finds himself obsessed with seeking out the truth. This book had me reading long into the night as I followed Mitch on his journey, worried that he may himself end up in the crosshairs and become another statistic in the political cover ups.

An interesting read, totally recommended for anyone interested in the Kennedy era - from start to finish this one had me engrossed and unable to put it down. One of those books that you'll remember reading.

My thanks to the Publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy for review purposes.

I have always thought that RJ Ellory was an exceptional thriller writer who has never received the acclaim he rightfully deserves.

Hopefully things will change and Three Bullets is an exceptionally clever, original, well thought through and plotted book which, it goes without saying, is also beautifully written.

I will not reveal the plot but just imagine if JFK had not been assassinated and what might have happened in that instance?

Read it and find out for yourself and you really will not be disappointed!